03 TPE Introduction-converted

The author is tired of business books that lack valuable content. Their goal for "The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur" is to be different and better. They use the example of having limited toilet paper to demonstrate the importance of using resources wisely. They emphasize the need for an entrepreneurial mindset and the ability to achieve success with limited resources. This book is for those who want to challenge the status quo and take responsibility for their own success. The author shares their experiences and outlines commonalities among successful company launches. They encourage readers to think differently and be willing to try something new. Introduction. The world is more valuable than you think, and it's waiting for you to hammer it into shape. Bonner. I'm tired. Tired of the hundreds, if not thousands, of business books that are all title and no content. Most of those books should be distilled to one or two pages of valuable content. The others should be used to wipe your ass. I can't tell you how many books I've started pouring through, and in minutes found myself boring through, until I finally gave up. Only a select few business books are truly great and need to be read cover to cover. My goal for The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is to be different and far better than the traditional business books and burned-out grad school rhetoric, from the first word to the last. You'll find no outdated concepts in this book and no optimized entrepreneurial execution methodologies. This book is straight from the trenches. I've put all my effort, experience, and resources into making The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur one of the best. You decide if it is. This book is about getting real, dispelling the naysayers, and kicking you in the butt to get up and do it. The less you have of something critical, the more important it becomes, and the more wisely you use it. This is true with everything. Love, food, money, and even, or especially, toilet paper. Have you ever been doing your business with your pants hugging your ankles, and when you're ready to wrap things up, notice that you're extremely low on toilet paper? Don't deny it. You know exactly what I'm talking about. Three tattered sheets of TP hang off the edge of the cardboard roll, mocking you. This is a crappy position to be in, pun intended. There are only two or three options. You could call for help, which is way too embarrassing, but it's an option. Of course, you could do the humbling, hunched shuffle of shame, and pray you find a roll somewhere nearby. That's horrible, but it's an option. The final option, usually the best option, is to manage with what you've got. And when you apply your entrepreneurial mind, you quickly recognize you have more than a mere three sheets. Here's the play-by-play. Go with the final option and decide to manage. Let's be honest. You have a reputation for using more than three sheets. You gotta see what else you can. Wait a minute. Ah, yes! The waste paper basket. Like a master gymnast performing a two-handed straddle over a pummel horse, you hold yourself up and stretch your leg out. Just. Far. Enough. With your leg quivering from the strain, you precariously hook your toes over the garbage pail and start dragging it in. Come to mama. Come to mama. You repeat over and over in your head. Time to examine your newly found treasure trove. You snot rag. Good. Very good. A Q-tip. Oh, the inhumanity. Usable, if you must. A few cotton balls. Okay, you can work with that. And dental floss. No way. You draw the line of dental floss. So with three sheets of TP, a few cotton balls, a used tissue, and a little poking around with a Q-tip, you walk out fresh as a daisy, ready to face the world. Of course, you don't reload the toilet paper for the next guy. Let him learn the hard way. The story doesn't end there. The next time you visit the john, you check the TP supply immediately. With the ready supply, you tear through the paper like it's going out of style. Within a few weeks of the incident, though, you return to your old ways without a fleeting thought of being caught shorthanded. Sure enough, before long, you get caught again with your pantaloons kissing your ankles and an empty roll, praying you won't need the dental floss this time. Do you see the amazing entrepreneurial lessons here? In this most challenging, most human moment of all, we demonstrate our infinite ability to pull miracles out of the trash. When we literally have no option to just get up and walk away, we find a way to get the job done. With three sheets, some wastebasket scraps, and possibly a torn-up cardboard roll, the impossible becomes very possible. It's awe-inspiring how careful, thoughtful, and innovative we are when our supplies are scarce. But it's also confounding how quickly we use and abuse our resources when we perceivably have a lot. The problem is how our heads work. When we have knowledge of abundance in a specific instance, e.g., a full roll of TP, we convert this into careless perception of perpetual abundance, e.g., an endless supply of TP within arm's reach. Hence, we waste what we have. Even worse, we don't check to make sure it isn't running out. We just assume it's going to be there. We sit down, do our business, and then grab thin air. Damn! Here we go again. Now, what if every time you sat down, there were only three sheets of toilet paper left on the roll? When you always expect scant resources, you quickly get in the habit of being very careful in your cleanup every time. You sure as hell would ensure the garbage basket was in your lap before you got rolling. You may even adjust your behaviors to preserve what you have, possibly making other stops before you got home or eating more rice or something. Your mindset, your focus, and your actions would all change in anticipation of having less to work or wipe with. Your success is completely determined by your ability to break free from the one and only approach everyone else is following. Your success is completely determined by how you use your mind, how you manage your critical resources, and how decisively you act to achieve the impossible with very few traditional resources. Your success is completely determined not by giving up and waiting for some extra rolls, but by going with what you've got. The people who elect to master this knowledge and exploit it in their business are the few, the proud, the Toilet Paper Entrepreneurs. The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is not for common thinking people. The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur is not for the faint of heart or for those with an intolerant colon, for that matter. This book is for people who have a desire to achieve entrepreneurial success, know it's going to be tough, and have the guts to stick it out. It's not for the wannabes and the talkers. This book is not for people who are willing to try something new simply to identify all the problems and thereby prove that they were right in the first place. You know who you are. And this book is definitely not for people who think a single book or a series of materials can take them from rags to riches. This book is for people who want to challenge the status quo. This book is for people who will take lessons, use them to exploit their strengths, and then go for it with all they've got. Most importantly, this book is for people who take sole responsibility for their own success or failure. Success in business isn't about being right. It's about being committed. So do you want to be right or do you want to be successful? I pick success. Your success is up to you. The safety of a lifelong career with a large company died out long ago with one final dying Enron gasp. The security, the fun, and all the rewards exist in entrepreneurialism. Think about it. You can't trust or depend on anyone more than yourself. And I'm willing to bet that you already have all the skills you need to get started. You probably just need a better awareness of what you already have as well as a swift kick in the ass. That's my job. It's time you give the truth and not some sugar-coated nonsense or formula for quick success. Launching and building a company is freaking hard. It is scary, time-consuming, frustrating, and sometimes life-draining. And quite frankly, you might fuck it up and ruin yourself financially. But financial disaster is unlikely if you relentlessly commit to your own success. If you exploit your strengths, you can create a company that feeds your wallet and your soul. A company that exhilarates and frees you. If you have the destination, this book is the map. The thing I can't do is travel for you. You must be willing to try something new, push beyond your perceived limitations, and grow. The responsibility for your entrepreneurial experience sits squarely on your shoulders. The meats may inherit the earth one day, but they sure as hell won't be entrepreneurs. Having been down the road of building three companies of my own from scratch, partnering in the launch of many others, and researching hundreds of startups, I have discovered commonalities among successful company launches which I outline in this book. I'll tell you one thing right off. It sure isn't common thinking. So ignore what you were told in business school, forget what you think you know about startups, and throw out your dad's method of money management. This is a new generation of entrepreneurs, and it's time for a new modus operandi. Are you ready to get off the pot?